tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39787559240323401232017-08-01T06:22:19.661-05:00A Robe and a BowlFar too many words exploring life as a Zen Buddhist priestShodhinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05435146941696118225noreply@blogger.comBlogger369125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978755924032340123.post-54909005214257806032016-04-19T11:31:00.002-05:002016-04-19T11:31:58.186-05:00Writing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">So I've been plugging along on this book project for a number of months now. Depending on the day or even the hour, I am either pleased or disappointed with what has been written so far. I suppose that comes with the turf.<br /><br />What I hadn't expected was how writing on the Dharma, far from becoming a distraction to practice, has actually helped spur my practice on. The more I dig and the more I write, the more marrow-deep convinced I am that the Dharma is whole, complete, efficacious, and right.<br /><br />I can't write that in the book, so I write it here.</div>Shodhinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05435146941696118225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978755924032340123.post-49662371998795136472014-05-28T17:08:00.001-05:002014-07-04T03:56:45.528-05:00Thanks, Scott<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">It is no small thing to be invited to stand at a friend's hospital bedside. &nbsp;It is no small honor to watch closely as those things most important to him make their way to the surface, leaving all else behind. &nbsp;It is no small trust to be given the final call whether to continue medical interventions or let the inevitable arrive on its own terms.<br /><br />I am a man blessed beyond measure, full beyond capacity. &nbsp;I am a better man for having simply been around him.<br /><br />I've said it before, and I'll say it again. &nbsp;I love this life, this very life.<br /><br />And I know he does, too.</div>Shodhinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05435146941696118225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978755924032340123.post-32147695406541146442014-01-06T19:05:00.001-06:002014-01-06T19:06:25.599-06:00Sic Transit Festis<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I put up the tree on or about December 8, in conjunction with Rohatsu. I take it down on our about January 6, in conjunction with Epiphany. Today it came down, and so another holiday season comes to an end.<br /><br />By nature I'm one of those folks that just eats this time up – the imagery, the wonder, the stillness, the acts of kindness large and small that surface all over the place. From the realization of someone like you and I who saw with utmost clarity the true nature of this world and our lives, to the manifestation of the seamless union of the absolute and the relative in flesh-and-blood no different at all from our own, I have no shortage of occasions to ponder and marvel at this life of ours. I'm almost embarrassed to count the number of times I've been moved to tears over the last month or so. <br /><br />And why? <br /><br />Celebrated is Shakyamuni's enlightenment, of course, but celebrated is ours as well. Celebrated is theophany in the baby of Bethlehem, but celebrated is the same in us as well. <br /><br />I don't know, but I find that spending a little time with all of that makes me just that much more inclined to smile at our finitude, our all-too-humanness, our quirks and our missteps. Somehow, through the decorating and the baking and the gifting and the eating and the drinking and the family-ing and all the rest I'm reminded yet again of how wondrous each and every one of us is, warts and all.<br /><br />It's bitter cold here tonight, and there's hurt of all kinds all over the place. May all be as warm as they can be. May all be at ease.</div>Shodhinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05435146941696118225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978755924032340123.post-78653028746914908832013-12-30T10:10:00.001-06:002013-12-30T13:36:42.083-06:002013 Closeout<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">If there's one thing that's really settled into my bones of late, it is the realization that there really is nothing at all to say about this life and this practice. <br /><br />When they ask, I just keep saying to people, "Just keep living your life, every last bit of it, full-on, without fear or anxiety or remainder. And above all, don't ever think you know what any of that even means." <br /><br />That's all.</div>Shodhinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05435146941696118225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978755924032340123.post-17862109278649553802013-11-29T07:56:00.000-06:002013-11-29T07:56:55.142-06:00Why Black Friday is So Important<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Ever since Gmail decided to sort the Inbox into "Primary," "Social," and "Promotions" categories it's become easy to see just how much of what comes my way is advertising. &nbsp;This morning, "Promotions" was chock full of ads and offers, a windfall of Black Friday specials of one kind or another.<br /><br />Here's the thing: I look at them. &nbsp;&nbsp;Yep, 50% off this, 40% off that with free shipping, buy one at 25% off get the next at 50% off – the list goes on. And I look at them.<br /><br />I have to own that I'm as tempted as anyone to pick up another of my favorite things when some retailer is taking a good chunk of the price off and throwing in free shipping, too. &nbsp;In this, I am no different from the door busting, wee hours of the morning purchasing, major artery jamming hordes that were out and underway as early as yesterday evening. &nbsp;No different at all. &nbsp;Even if I should like to think otherwise.<br /><br />Just as Thanksgiving gives me occasion to exercise gratitude, Black Friday reminds me just how much work I still have to do.</div>Shodhinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05435146941696118225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978755924032340123.post-76065195655066809882013-11-16T09:56:00.000-06:002013-11-17T05:26:27.215-06:00The Pressure to Say or Do Something<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Two nights ago I was involved in a residence hall activity where I, the Buddhist, along with two of my colleagues, both Christian, but one from India so he spoke on Hinduism, had an hour with the students. We were each invited to talk for about 15 mins about the respective traditions, and then a Q&amp;A followed.<br /><br />It was fine enough, but I always leave such events with a bad taste in my mouth. &nbsp;"If you say, 'Buddha, wash you mouth out three times" makes such increasing sense to me. &nbsp;"Buddha" indeed…!<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;">Would that I never had to talk about this practice again. &nbsp;Would that henceforth and forever I could just say, "Look!" and let that be enough and more than enough. &nbsp;Even better: to just smile Mahākāshyapa's smile and leave it at that!</div></div></div>Shodhinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05435146941696118225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978755924032340123.post-4882413986287216892013-11-15T07:41:00.002-06:002013-11-15T20:48:58.091-06:00What if No One's in Charge?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Some people look at the relative order of the universe and are drawn to the conclusion that it must be the work of one single agent. <br /><br />If I look at something like the city of Chicago, for instance, with its complexity and relative orderliness, I can be astounded that the whole thing functions just as well as it does (food comes in, waste is processed, there's water sent to every floor in the downtown skyscrapers, and on and on), but I don't jump to the conclusion that there must have been, and continue to be, some one mind, one agent behind it. <br /><br />Why?<br /><br />Because I know better.&nbsp; I get that when you put a bunch of trifling decisions, personal goals, some group think and some time together you get a functioning metropolis.&nbsp; I also get that when you put a bunch of trifling decisions, personal goals, some group think and some time together you get all the social ills associated with this kind of metropolis.<br /><br />This works from the other direction as well, and&nbsp;I find that there is no captain to this ship I call me, either.&nbsp; Sure, I can order coffee instead of tea or choose Star Trek over Dancing with the Stars, but I know that those choices do not come out of nowhere.&nbsp; They are themselves conditioned by conditioned conditions, stretching beyond the grasp of comprehension. Some of my actions go on to become the context for other actions; some of my actions go nowhere, just gestures that appear and disappear without much trace at all.<br /><br />Best part is, it really doesn't matter. &nbsp;Whether all of this is the flowering of one single directing mind or not, my morning coffee is just as satisfying. My gratitude for making it alive and well to another day is not diminished in the least because I have no particular someone to thank. &nbsp;And whether or not there is or is not a central command to this business I call me, I'll muddle along just as I've always done, sometimes skillfully, sometimes not. &nbsp;</div>Shodhinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05435146941696118225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978755924032340123.post-5520446208806725302013-10-21T18:46:00.000-05:002013-10-21T18:46:06.916-05:00Mu Rising<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">In the past few weeks I've had the opportunity to speak with several people one-on-one about their practice. &nbsp;In each case, the person in question was finding renewed aspiration and renewed resolve to enter into the fray of seeing into what there is to see into. <br /><br />What none of them understand is what their grit and pluck and wonder does for <i>my</i> practice. <br /><br />It takes me back to my first halting attempts at the koan, to that initial sense that I was embarking on the task of a lifetime, to the fear and awe and frustration and strange sense of comfort that walking the same path as all Buddhas and bodhisattvas brought with it. <br /><br />It brings me back to the present, to all the ways in which I still get stuck in the well-worn habit tracks laid down by greed, anger and confusion.<br /><br />It bids me press on, knowing that the Dharma does not disappoint and that countless ages will not suffice to plumb it completely.<br /><br />What a gift, this koan practice – so unlike anything else and yet so absolutely straightforward and plain at the same time!</div>Shodhinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05435146941696118225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978755924032340123.post-33532517615376076382013-10-20T20:13:00.002-05:002013-10-20T20:13:43.002-05:00How Out of It am I?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I know someone who has it in his head that the bank around the corner is First <i>Nations</i>, not First <i>National</i>, Bank.&nbsp; No amount of correction has been successful in getting him to come up with the right name on his own. <br /><br />In getting my students ready for their first exam I drive home the point that it's an <i>essay</i> exam, and paragraph ≠ essay.&nbsp; I will bet my last dollar that tomorrow when the exams come in, there will be at least one, and likely more than one, paragraph passing itself off as an essay.&nbsp; I will have them rewrite the exam, and of the rewrites at least one (such is the track record) will <i>still</i> come back as paragraph.<br /><br />These are somewhat extreme cases, of course, and I'm sure even more extreme cases likely exist. I could go on about "people these days..." or "some folks are so...;" but I won't. &nbsp;What I find myself puzzling about is, well, myself: what am I missing? &nbsp;getting wrong all the time? &nbsp;calling y instead of x? <br /><br />People don't correct me too often, but maybe they are just being kind – or merely reticent. &nbsp;I've been told I can be intimidating, and enough people have said that in enough different times and places that it must be somewhat true. &nbsp;Maybe I've built up a wall of intimidation that keeps my foibles and stupidities from being addressed. <br /><br />Help me out, folks, and don't withhold spiritual and material aid. &nbsp;Kick my ass!</div>Shodhinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05435146941696118225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978755924032340123.post-60739606540144698992013-10-09T18:21:00.000-05:002013-10-10T05:55:25.169-05:00When a Eulogy Isn't Quite Right<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">My aunt died last week. <br /><br />I do not believe I ever knew anyone so well who was so emotionally crippled, so thoroughly wrapped up in her own self-created miserable life. As I pause to remember her, I struggle to think of a single attribute of her life, a single personality trait, a single accomplishment that would prompt me to commend her to others as a model for living. &nbsp;I cannot come up with even one.<br /><br />She did not care for herself, and because she did not care for herself she was incapable of caring for others. &nbsp;She never learned the simple joy of living contentedly in her own skin, of making something of the life she'd been given, of entering into genuine relationship with other human beings. <br /><br />To be fair, she may not have even been capable of these things. &nbsp;Some people are just dealt a poor hand. &nbsp;She was never in good health, never possessed much attractiveness, and was plagued by mental health issues throughout her life (undiagnosed early on, I'd guess, and increasing in scope and severity until she could not but be treated or cease functioning at all competently). &nbsp;Still – and this is the part I keep coming back to – she seemed hell-bent on sabotaging even what few things she did have going for her, opting instead for a life lived increasingly alone, surrounded by consumer products (yes, she was a compulsive shopper and hoarder), and in stubborn refusal to work with her doctors in matters of diet and movement and the rest. <br /><br />She seemed to take a shining to me, though, and I never was on the receiving end of her fits and tantrums. &nbsp;In fact, she was rather kind to me, and she took an interest in my life, though I never felt like I was at all at liberty to give her more than just the most cursory account of my goings on. For that, of course, I am most grateful. <br /><br />If you are still reading this, do me a favor. &nbsp;Send some merit in her direction. &nbsp;A hungrier ghost you are not likely to find. <br /><br />May she one day be at ease. &nbsp;May whatever sufferings she endured in this life go some distance to making her subsequent burdens lighter. &nbsp;May she one day find her True Home.</div>Shodhinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05435146941696118225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978755924032340123.post-30037024932253767612013-08-31T08:04:00.003-05:002013-08-31T08:07:21.070-05:00Getting it Right? Forget It!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I'm often bedeviled by worries about authenticity or accuracy.&nbsp; Part of it has to do with my line of work, but part of it has to do with my general disposition, I'm sure.&nbsp; Now that I think of it, it's probably the case that I fell into my line of work because of my disposition!<br /><br />For instance, I have non-philosopher colleagues who, when they teach a certain philosophical text, don't do a very good job with it.&nbsp; They miss details and key points, overlook significant turns in the argument, and mistake the overall aim of the text as a result.&nbsp; Drives me nuts.&nbsp; No physics department would let me lecture on physics, no med school let me train people in neuroscience, so why do these colleagues get to talk about a philosophy text?&nbsp; Surely there's a more and a less "right" here, no?<br /><br />I find that this same perturbation arising in relation to the Zen world.&nbsp; Surely not everything that bears the name "Zen" in the contemporary landscape is the real deal.&nbsp; "Koan work" that isn't.&nbsp; "Teishos" that aren't.&nbsp; "Monks" who don't.&nbsp; "Roshis" who won't.&nbsp; The list goes on.&nbsp; Surely there's a more and a less "right" here, no?<br /><br />Then I remember what I have always known – <i>always</i>, before there was even an "I" to know it: This is not me; this is not mine.&nbsp; Remembering that, I am reminded that it's not my job to manage the landscape.&nbsp; In fact, it's no one's job! "Forget about it," I hear Bankei saying, "and return to the Unborn."</div>Shodhinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05435146941696118225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978755924032340123.post-81368538716594748212013-08-24T08:40:00.003-05:002013-08-24T08:42:13.144-05:00"All Shall Be Well"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="st">The longer I'm around the more it settles into me how the search for, and the attainment of, awakening is one.&nbsp; And how could it not be?&nbsp; Truth is openly shown to our eyes.&nbsp; There is nothing Buddhist or Christian or Jewish or Muslim or Sikh or Jain or Hindu or Shinto or Zoroastrian or whatever in it, save as it includes all that is Buddhist or Christian or Jewish or Muslim or Sikh or Jain or Hindu or Shinto or Zoroastrian or whatever. </span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="st">Julian of Norwich (c1342-c1416) claimed to have received the revelation, "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."&nbsp; That phrasing was reprised by T.S. Eliot in "Little Gidding" in several places and here, at the end:</span></span></span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="st">We shall not cease from exploration</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="st">And the end of all our exploring</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="st">Will be to arrive where we started</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="st">And know the place for the first time.</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="st">Through the unknown, unremembered gate</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="st">When the last of earth left to discover</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="st">Is that which was the beginning;</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="st">At the source of the longest river</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="st">The voice of the hidden waterfall</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="st">And the children in the apple-tree</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="st">Not known, because not looked for</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="st">But heard, half-heard, in the stillness</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="st">Between two waves of the sea.</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="st">Quick, now, here, now, always –</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="st">A condition of complete simplicity</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="st">(Costing not less than everything)&nbsp;</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="st">And all shall be well and</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="st">All manner of thing shall be well</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="st">When the tongues of flame are in-folded</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="st">Into the crowned knot of fire</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="st">And the fire and the rose are one.</span></span></span></blockquote><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="st">"All shall be well" is not prognostication.&nbsp; It is declarative fact, true from beginningless time, present, though half-heard and as yet unseen, "now, here, now, always."&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="st">To know this we need but go through the gate that is no gate because unknown and most certainly eventually not even remembered. &nbsp; </span></span></span></div>Shodhinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05435146941696118225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978755924032340123.post-73763012064048969982013-08-22T08:39:00.001-05:002013-08-22T08:41:00.447-05:00Just Fine, Thanks<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">A few years ago I set out on this priesting endeavor, and, I have to admit, I had it in my head I was going to become a <i>good</i> priest.&nbsp; Of course, I didn't know what that meant, really, and I know I set up all kinds of projections as to what that could possibly entail.&nbsp; I'm kind of embarrassed, really, to own some of the preconceptions I came to this with.<br /><br />Why?<br /><br />Along the way something better has happened.&nbsp; I just became more… <i>me</i>.&nbsp; Yep, the same old guy I've always been, but with one big difference: I'm less and less inclined to try to be something other (whether different, or more, or less) than what I am.&nbsp;<br /><br />I don't know that that makes me a <i>good</i> anything, but I don't care.&nbsp; I wouldn't trade this for anything!</div>Shodhinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05435146941696118225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978755924032340123.post-67282668007871392972013-08-11T05:38:00.000-05:002013-08-15T07:44:09.856-05:00Jetztzeit<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">This moment is not an add-on to what has come before, nor is it a warm-up or precursor to what comes after.&nbsp; All the lapses of ages will neither augment nor diminish the morning calls of the birds I now hear, nor will it add or subtract any color from the sunrise out my window right now.&nbsp; In this moment I, too, am ageless, and nothing of my senses will be in any way sharpened or dulled in hearing and seeing <i>these</i> birds and <i>this</i> sunrise, no matter how old I am or how long I live.<br /><br />The two axes of time, if we need to talk like that, are not past and present, but <i>now</i> and <i>forever</i>.</div>Shodhinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05435146941696118225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978755924032340123.post-50631457665798769682013-08-09T08:43:00.002-05:002013-08-12T07:24:26.819-05:00I Don't Have a Dream<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><blockquote class="tr_bq">On se prend parfois à rêver de ce que pourrait être les cultures, la vie littéraire, l’enseignement, si tous ceux qui y participent, ayant une bonne fois rejeté les idoles, se livraient au bonheur de réfléchir ensemble … mais ce rêve n’est pas raisonnable…<br /><div style="text-align: right;">Merleau-Ponty </div></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;">I find I keep coming back to the realization that each person sees what he or she can see – <i>and nothing further</i>.&nbsp; I've always know that on some level, I think.&nbsp; When I read the above passage in grad school it struck me like a ton of bricks; I even included it in the front matter of my dissertation.&nbsp; I had the same sense when I read Mumon's comment on one who has seen into mu: "You are like a mute person who has had a dream – you know it for yourself alone."&nbsp; No, it really is too much to expect that there is a universal, common, known ground on which we all stand and on the basis of which we can flawlessly understand and be understood.&nbsp; </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Unless, of course, that basis is no-basis.&nbsp; In that case, we all – every last one of us – might proceed from a position of humility, deference and non-knowing.&nbsp; Best to be "greatly enlightened about delusion" than "greatly deluded about enlightenment," as <span class="st">Dōgen put it.&nbsp; But even </span><span class="st">Dōgen was no pollyanna.&nbsp; There will always be Buddhas <i>and</i> sentient beings, flowers will fall in attachment, and weeds will spread in aversion.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="st"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="st">Maybe it's advancing age (I doubt it's deepening wisdom), but I have less and less interest in hearing about how this group should think this way, or that company should act that way, or this person shouldn't say those things, or that country ought to treat its people better, etc.&nbsp; I'm sure people are talking about me, too!&nbsp; But until I see it for myself, all their talk will be so much noise and chatter, and I'm guessing the same is true for everyone else as well.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="st"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="st">If someone is worried that means the world isn't as perfect as it might be, I would simply suggest that it's only 2013.&nbsp; If all goes well, there are many thousands of years ahead of us.&nbsp; Maybe things will shift a little after a chunk of that time has passed.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="st">Maybe.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="st">(But don't bet on it.)</span></div></div>Shodhinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05435146941696118225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978755924032340123.post-13275130185368208562013-08-04T19:51:00.000-05:002013-08-05T04:54:58.907-05:00"Paris is Well Worth a Mass"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">The Huguenot Henri IV was willing to renounce his Protestantism and convert to Catholicism in order to secure the throne of France and the allegiance of his subjects.&nbsp; Sometimes we have to give up something in order to get something.<br /><br />It's safe to say that there is no coursing deep in the Dharma without leaving the moorings of self behind.&nbsp; Sometimes we have to give up something in order to get something.<br /><br />One can sit countless hours on the mat.&nbsp; One can listen to teisho after teisho.&nbsp; One can sign on for every sesshin that comes along.&nbsp; One can talk all the Buddhist lingo and know all the right Dharma peeps.&nbsp; But if one isn't willing to drop significant ego-attachment in the run of ones daily life, it really is a pitiful waste of time.&nbsp; <br /><br />That special quirk of yours – the one that has everyone saying, "Oh yeah, so-and-so, he never takes part in <i>that</i>" or "Oh, so-and-so?&nbsp; Yeah, she has to do it <i>this</i> way...."– is the liberation and release promised by the Buddha worth giving that up for?<br /><br />That knee-jerk reaction of yours – the one that everyone can imitate because you do it <i>all</i> the time – is that worth liberation and release?<br /><br />That same old commentary – you know, the same paragraph of discourse you go into every time something is mentioned – is that worth liberation and release?<br /><br />And what about the show you always watch, or the beverage you always have to have, or "the thing you do every Tuesday"? Are those worth liberation and release?<br /><br />And what about the scary places you keep refusing to head into, the parts of your life you keep putting off, the tough decisions and the surrendering to vulnerability and embarrassment you refuse to take on? Are those worth liberation and release?<br /><br />And then there's that story line by which you define yourself – the one about your parents or your upbringing or your kids or your ex or your boss or the times or your finances or the government.&nbsp; Is that worth liberation and release?<br /><br />How many times have you heard "When preferences are cast aside the Way stands clear and undisguised" and <i>still</i> don't get that truer words have never been spoken?<br /><br />(And lest anyone think I'm getting on my high horse here, know well that the "you" in those questions refers to me as much as anyone else!)<br /><br />The universe is one, and the Dharma is of a consistent flavor throughout.&nbsp; Take the plunge!&nbsp; It's well worth it.</div>Shodhinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05435146941696118225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978755924032340123.post-81605179655084270082013-07-31T14:58:00.000-05:002013-07-31T14:59:04.215-05:00Beyond the Saved and the Damned<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">It has become a commonplace among those who believe in an afterlife that everyone goes to heaven.&nbsp; I have yet to be at a funeral where the assumption wasn't held that the deceased had now entered into his or her eternal reward and that that reward was a pleasing one.&nbsp; Not one.&nbsp; <br /><br />I'm not one for pre- and post-life talk at all, and yet there is something intimated by it that is, all the mystification notwithstanding, spot on.&nbsp; It's the idea that what we see and hear and feel as ourselves and our lives are but momentary glimpses of a bunch of processes and forces that stretch out endlessly before and after.&nbsp; The mistake, of course, is to think that this glimpse is definitive and exhaustive, perduring, and on some level unchanging.&nbsp; A correlative mistake is to think that at the end of this brief glimpse enough is known for it to be given a final reckoning and assessment.&nbsp; And since no one wants to be mean, I suppose a further mistake is to just to assume everything was just fine and that the balance sheet shows an overall positive sum.<br /><br />Without wanting to throw the issue completely to the other side, I have to say things were probably closer to the truth when one approached death with a bit of fear and trembling, when the survivors prayed for mercy on the deceased, when the "Dies Irae" was sung.&nbsp; At least then there was some acknowledgement that the deceased wasn't really all that angelic after all.&nbsp; <br /><br />I won't speak about others' faults, but I do know this about myself.&nbsp; On the day I die there will have been work left undone.&nbsp; On the day I die I will still be making lapses in body, speech and mind arising from those primal tugs of clinging, aversion and stupor.&nbsp; On the day I die the "ancient twisted karma" I had acknowledged time and again in the Repentance Gatha will have just gotten another day older in a span of kalpas of kalpas of kalpas. <br /><br />Positive balance sheet?&nbsp; Ha!&nbsp; I hope beyond hope that those who survive me will be kind enough to throw some merit in my direction.&nbsp; I will most certainly stand in need of it.</div>Shodhinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05435146941696118225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978755924032340123.post-18123696318645254612013-07-18T17:14:00.003-05:002013-07-31T20:12:29.663-05:00The Four Vows 2: Uprooting Endless Blind Passions<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><blockquote class="tr_bq">&nbsp;&nbsp; Another time Joshu said, "I can make one blade of grass be a sixteen-foot golden Buddha, and I can make a sixteen-foot golden Buddha be one blade of grass.&nbsp; Buddha is compulsive passions, compulsive passions are Buddha."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp; A monk asked, "For the sake of whom does the Buddha become compulsive passions?"<br />&nbsp;&nbsp; The master said, "For the sake of all people Buddha becomes compulsive passions."<br />&nbsp;&nbsp; The monk said, "How can they be escaped?"<br />&nbsp;&nbsp; The master said, "What is the use of escaping?"</blockquote>It's not hard to enter into the monk's confusion.&nbsp; After all, he no doubt recited, like us, the second of the great Bodhisattva Vows:<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><blockquote class="tr_bq">Endless blind passions I vow to uproot.</blockquote></div>Surely he took those lines seriously, and perhaps he did his level best to fulfill them, but Joshu won't let him go where he wants to go with them.&nbsp; Why? <br /><br />The monk's first question, "for whose sake?," creates a split between two kinds of people.&nbsp; Some, he's probably thinking, don't need Buddha to become compulsive passions.&nbsp; In his mind, they might be so far beyond that kind of stuff, so not in need of the red dust of the world, that they can find their way without Buddha needing to sully or lower himself for their sake.&nbsp; The others, benighted as they are, need Buddha to do precisely that.<br /><br />Joshu counters that such special folk don't exist anywhere. We are – all of us – very much in need of the stuff of our lives, the tugs and pulls and prods and pokes that move us along.&nbsp; In Zen, we represent Buddha as Shakyamuni, the flesh-and-blood one, the one who walked and shat and ate and fathered a child and knew all too well and then some the thick and thin of embodied existence.<br /><br />"OK," we can hear the monk thinking, "but surely this comes to an end, doesn't it? Isn't that the point of the exercise? Didn't even the Buddha escape them in the end?"<br /><br />Joshu's answer to this question can go in a couple of directions, depending on where one lays the emphasis.&nbsp; "What is the <i>use</i> of escaping?" is not the same as "What is the use of <i>escaping</i>?"&nbsp; In the same way, "<i>Endless blind passions</i> I vow to uproot" is not the same as "Endless blind passions I vow <i>to uproot</i>," and the parallel relationship obtains.&nbsp; If I'm worried about getting rid of the passions to be in some passion-free place, then it's the endless blind passions that I'll focus on, and I won't be content until they're gone.&nbsp; "What is the use of escaping?" is then Joshu's observation that one is never going to be free of them.<br /><br />If I'm focused on the uprooting in the vow, however, I'll see that escaping is beside the point.&nbsp; I don't need to hope the passions will go away, I just need to quit giving them a toehold in either my attachment or my repulsion.&nbsp; They will come and go as so many clouds on a summer's day but won't have any more solidity or holding power.&nbsp; "Escape? Wrong verb," Joshu tells us, "Just uproot."&nbsp; </div>Shodhinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05435146941696118225noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978755924032340123.post-48930655887622460182013-07-11T21:44:00.001-05:002013-07-11T21:44:07.929-05:00On Coloring Like a Second Grader with an 8-Pack of Crayons<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I love seeing kids' pictures where they color the top inch of the paper blue to represent the sky.&nbsp; Since the sky is "up there," they represent it "up there."&nbsp; It marks an important milestone in the child's development to bring the blue all the way down to the horizon and to know the sky is not just "up there" but "all around," too.<br /><br />It's so easy to be doltish in much the same way in all areas of life.&nbsp; How much of our personal and collective suffering is based on a much-too-simplistic rendering of reality?&nbsp; How many times do we fail to see the spread of things, their fullness, their complexity, all their detail and nuance and shading?&nbsp; <br /><br />I find I can grab hold of one aspect of a situation, one facet of someone's personality, some tiny detail of an issue, and work it like a puppy with a slipper until it's utterly unrecognizable and rendered into shreds.&nbsp; Only much too late do I realize that that aspect was one of many, the person wonderfully complex and interesting, the detail trivial.<br /><br />The 64-pack is not even enough to capture the wonder and awe and worry and ache of the world, of our lives, of each other, much less the 8-pack.&nbsp; And forget about coloring skills; it's already been laid out in magnificence right before our eyes.&nbsp; All we need do is look.</div>Shodhinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05435146941696118225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978755924032340123.post-62953105850305871992013-07-08T07:41:00.000-05:002013-07-12T04:28:30.594-05:00Empty Nest, The Void<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">There are only three more overnights here for my daughter in the next couple weeks before she heads off for some time abroad at her aunt and uncle's before starting college.&nbsp; As of July 17, I'm done with day-to-day life with a kid in tow, and the process begun almost 21 years ago with the birth of her sisters will have come to its inevitable conclusion.<br /><br />Wow.&nbsp; It really is amazing to begin to see just how much of my self-understanding has been wrapped up with being a parent all this time.&nbsp; As I'm looking forward on the calendar, I'm realizing I no longer have to plan around school events, track practice, karate lessons and sleepovers.&nbsp; It's dawning on me that I don't need a Plan B any more for when a kid is sick.&nbsp; I won't be running to the store for those foods the kids like but I don't when we unexpectedly run out.<br /><br />I can easily see how couples who have defined their marriage around the kids can find themselves at this point looking at each other like total strangers.&nbsp; I've had a lot of things besides parenting going on in my life, but even I'm looking at myself in the mirror now and wondering, "Well, what's next?&nbsp; Who else are you?&nbsp; What have you become after all this time?"<br /><br />And I don't know the answers to those questions, but I know a different answer to a very similar question.&nbsp; What is the way to Taishan?&nbsp; Straight ahead!&nbsp; Straight ahead!</div>Shodhinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05435146941696118225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978755924032340123.post-80011537634577873272013-07-04T10:01:00.000-05:002013-07-06T06:21:14.566-05:00Do Your Thing, Just Don't Make a Fuss About It<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I think there's a common enough tendency to think that the world would be such a better place if everyone were more… like myself.&nbsp; If only everyone voted… like me.&nbsp; If only everyone practiced… like me.&nbsp; If only everyone recycled, composted, bought organic, espoused the proper social policies, had the same artistic, architectural, culinary or design taste, cheered for the same sports teams, held views on life, child rearing, family relations and international trade… like me.<br /><br />What is that, really? <br /><br />The biggest argument we have why someone should to something is that we do it ourselves.&nbsp; Funny thing is, I don't even know <i>why</i> I do what I do, truth be told.&nbsp; I <i>find</i> I'm a person who likes this kind of music, that kind of food, this kind of vacation spot, this policy perspective or that dating partner.&nbsp; I <i>discover</i> predilections in me, propensities to this activity or another, an attraction to personalities of this kind rather than that.&nbsp; Concerning those things of which I seem to exercise some choice, I have to admit that the <i>range</i> of choices I'm at all willing or likely to entertain is itself not chosen my me; there are all kinds of things it <i>will never occur to me</i> to do.&nbsp; In the end, I could make up some story about how all of what I do is the product of sane, reasonable consideration, all sides having been weighed, all alternatives explored, but deep down I know it's not true for me, and I'd bet my bottom dollar it's not true for you, either.<br /><br />Upshot:<br /><br />I'm finding it more and more congenial to not say much about what I do or why I think it's a good idea.&nbsp; I find it frees me from the mental chatter that accompanies my actions.&nbsp; I find myself less defensive, simply because I have no prepared defense at the ready.<br /><br />I'm also finding myself tuning out ever more quickly others' talk about their actions and why they think they're such good ideas.&nbsp; I find it frees me from biting the bait and getting hooked into their discourse.&nbsp; I find myself on the offensive less, simply because I have nothing to gain by entering the fray.<br /><br />Are these good things for me to think and do?&nbsp; Beats me!</div>Shodhinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05435146941696118225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978755924032340123.post-17005458213525636342013-06-24T18:27:00.002-05:002013-06-25T15:28:49.890-05:00What to Do?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I recent came across a notice for an <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/06/24/130624fa_fact_macfarquhar" target="_blank">article</a> in <i>The New Yorker</i> about a Buddhist monk in Japan who is doing good Dharma work by meeting with suicide planners and helping them open up to the possibility of actually <i>living</i>.<br /><br />It resonated with me because here was an ordained doing something concrete at the point where people are suffering, and I have of late been contemplating ways in which I might do exactly the same.<br /><br />It's one thing – and a very important one, of course – to work to make a practice center possible.&nbsp; There is no getting around the paucity of places where one can show up and do the serious work of seeing into one's true nature.&nbsp; Helping to keep a practice center's door open is a task I am all too grateful for and eager to perform.&nbsp; I can honestly say I love the sangha here, warts and all, and I'm heartened to think I can be of service to them in however small a measure, with my warts and all.<br /><br />But the sea of suffering is great, and the those who present themselves at our door are going to be few, few, few in number, indeed.&nbsp; Can I not do something to be the voice of the Dharma among people who will never spend time on the mat, never attend a sesshin, never hear a teisho, never even smell the incense or hear the han?&nbsp; Can I not be a Zen priest to them, even if it means not coming across as "a Zen priest"?&nbsp; <br /><br />I've done the math, and I'm happily convinced that there is no plausible alignment of conditions that could result in me being sanctioned as a Zen teacher.&nbsp; None.&nbsp; I could not be more relieved! &nbsp; I take that as a kind of carte blanche to take the Dharma in any direction that is skillful and beneficial.<br /><br />A variety of circumstances are moving me to a point where my life is going to have to shift from its present course.&nbsp; Here is the top of the 100-foot flagpole.&nbsp; Time to take a step!</div>Shodhinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05435146941696118225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978755924032340123.post-11112381495390544922013-06-11T07:28:00.000-05:002013-06-11T21:45:54.959-05:00be • lieve verb \bə-ˈlēv\<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I started on this one a few months ago.&nbsp; That I kept nursing it along is perhaps the best indication of how truly baffled I am by the issue. <br /><br />The longer I'm around, the harder the time I'm having making sense of the verb, <i>believe</i>.&nbsp; It's troubling to me, since I find it's a word that carries a significant load in current parlance and contemporary politics, and I just don't see how it could possibly bear that load up.&nbsp; It is also troubling to me, since people often ask me about my Buddhist "beliefs" or what a Buddhist "believes," etc., and I find I just don't know what to do with such questions.<br /><br />I'll leave the first worry to the side, since it's tied up with so many other issues I wouldn't know where to start.&nbsp; The second worry is trouble enough but it's probably a bit less tangled of a knot.&nbsp; Off we go:<br /><br />I <i>take refuge</i> in the reality of enlightened Mind, in what it shows forth, and in the company of those who, like me, seek to attain it.&nbsp; I <i>have confidence</i> that these mark out a reliable path for my practice. I <i>resolve</i> to do my best to follow the way that leads to the end of suffering by rooting out its causes in my own body, speech and mind. <br /><br />That's plenty already, I should think.&nbsp; Anything else that comes up in conjunction with any of the above – like seeing into the fact that all phenomena (<i>all</i> of them, my embodied "self" included) are marked by non-self, impermanence and unsatisfactoriness – aren't matters so much of belief as much as <i>accurate assessments</i> of states of affairs that make a sane life possible.&nbsp; I guess you could say that I "believe" in conditioned co-arising the way I "believe" in gravity.<br /><br />As in the case of gravity, I don't see a need to discuss these things much; I just use them accordingly.&nbsp; If I'm tossing someone a garden glove, I reckon my throw with gravity as a given.&nbsp; If I am navigating my way with another person, I reckon my assessment and course of action with respect to the marks of conditioned existence.&nbsp; I can screw up my throw, and I can screw up my interpersonal relations, but these are not because gravity or, say, impermanence are wrong; it's because I didn't rely on them accurately or enough.&nbsp; It's called "user failure" in that case, not a matter of a "false belief."<br /><br />The unseen is woven into the seen, and the absolute is inherent in the relative.&nbsp; There is no need to create a parallel universe populated with beings and ideas that do not belong in this one.&nbsp; No need at all!</div>Shodhinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05435146941696118225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978755924032340123.post-74491659090408805682013-06-07T12:49:00.000-05:002013-06-25T05:30:35.238-05:00The Other Smile of the Buddha<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I've been laid up for a few days now with an infection that – ok, I won't head into TMI territory – has me moving much more slowly than usual.&nbsp; After visits to a GP and a specialist, with a follow-up ultrasound, I'm now on two weeks' worth of anitbiotics, orders to do nothing strenuous for a few weeks, to apply an ice pack for another day yet, then to sit in warm baths thereafter.&nbsp; The specialist says things won't be completely back to normal for 6-8 weeks, but I should be able to be more active after 3.<br /><br />Fun, huh?!&nbsp; Good thing I got most of the garden taken care of already, though there's some speculation that's what brought this on.<br /><br />I have to say that, as much as I prefer health, vigor and activity, I can use situations like this once in a while.&nbsp; I'm watching issues come up for me that I usually don't see much of or all that often.&nbsp; Inadequacy is in there, and a good measure of loneliness (though my DVD supplier has overnighted another collection for me to watch during my convalescence, and I'm quite grateful to him for that), not to mention the aches and pains, the yukkiness of fevers and all the rest. These provide a necessary corrective to my over-inflated sense of self, my shows of having it all together, my sense of connectedness and bodily integrity.&nbsp; I am reminded of the finitude and radical aloneness embodied existence carries with it.<br /><br />But, and all of a sudden, the lives of those laid up in hospitals and nursing homes and hospice care become more real to me as well.&nbsp; The loneliness of those truly without family and friends becomes more significant to me.&nbsp; All at once, I feel a renewed kinship and bond with all of us, old and young, doing our level best to make it through this life.&nbsp; Every one of us, each in his or her own way, probably has something going on now he or she could use a hand with, a pat on the back for, a sympathetic ear to talk to about or just a shoulder to lean on.<br /><br />A couple weeks ago I gave a talk here on the Fasting Buddha.&nbsp; I made the point that, far from representing the <i>wrong way to practice</i>, it strikes me as representing a <i>necessary form of practice along the way</i>.&nbsp; It's the first step out of the palace and its cushy life and ignorance of the world for the Buddha on his way to awakening.&nbsp; It can be our way out of the many kinds of "palaces" we build that keep us safe and secure but, for all that, lacking in wisdom and compassion.&nbsp; We need to do without and get a taste of suffering and disorientation every once in a while to discern just how deep the roots of self run.&nbsp; Life sometimes gives us enough of those, but if we're finding things going just smashingly well, maybe we need to head straight in under our own power, to probe the depths and so come to see even more clearly that we're not at all what we thought we were.&nbsp; The Buddha found his limits and then took food again.&nbsp; I can honestly say I have not yet found mine and that my practice remains incomplete as a result.<br /><br />Still, even though I'm not all skin and bones I can still smile faintly the smile of the Fasting Buddha.&nbsp; It's the smile that comes with seeing sickness and setback as welcome teachers and guides.&nbsp; If I have one wish, it's that I can smile this same smile under even worse conditions, right up to the very end.</div>Shodhinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05435146941696118225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3978755924032340123.post-43827473588567228202013-06-06T09:30:00.002-05:002013-07-06T06:24:57.290-05:00The Four Vows 1: The Liberation of All Beings<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: center;">All beings without number, I vow to liberate.</div><br />If we treat this as a standard declarative sentence, with subject, verb and object doing their usual work, the first of the Bodhisattva vows is meaningless.&nbsp; I, being the kind of fathom-high critter I am, do not even know how many numberless beings there are (it's a commonplace that we have not yet neared the end of taxonomizing beetles, let alone the rest of the insects, for instance), and it is not at all clear what it would mean to "liberate" them.&nbsp; "Liberate them" from what?&nbsp; How?&nbsp; By myself?&nbsp; Really? How much time will that take?<br /><br />No, the first of the Bodhisattva vows is not uttered in the realm of conditioned existence.<br /><br />If we treat the first vow as an expression of enlightened mind, in which the emptiness of "I" is seen through and through, then there is no I and no numberless beings, either, and they are, in their radical non-selfhood, already liberated.&nbsp; <br /><br />Indeed, the first of the Bodhisattva vows is uttered in the realm of the absolute.<br /><br />Now here's the rub: it's a bogus move to start in the realm of the absolute and derive from it something about what should be done in the realm of conditioned existence.&nbsp; There is nothing in the absolute on which to hang anything about conditioned existence.&nbsp; That's precisely why the one is the absolute and the other conditioned.<br /><br />Put differently: uttering the first Bodhisattva vow commits me to nothing particular whatsoever in terms of day-to-day action in the world. &nbsp; Since I cannot derive something about conditioned beings from the absolute, I cannot derive what action to take with respect to them, either.&nbsp; With an even finer point on it: the first Bodhisattva vow cannot be used as leverage for any kind of action or ethical position or theory or principle or maxim or -ism.<br /><br /><i>None</i>, near as I can tell.<br /><br />And yet….<br /><br />I have seen what happens in the actions of everyday men and women, conditioned beings in a conditioned world, once they have begun to glimpse the absolute.&nbsp; And it's not like, "Oh, John's doing thus-and-so, and that's a sign of his insight."&nbsp; No, it's infinitely more subtle than that.&nbsp; It's more like, "Oh, I hadn't expected <i>that</i> out of John.&nbsp; Wow, where'd <i>that</i> come from?"<br /><br />And in being able even to say that much, we find ourselves, the world and all beings therein – even if only for a moment – all very much at ease.</div>Shodhinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05435146941696118225noreply@blogger.com0